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Kevin Free
An anonymous reader writes: "Surely many of you will remember that before there was ever a cry to 'Free Dimitry Sklyarov', Free Kevin Mitnick was the call of many. He was convicted on 'hacking' charges, though many on the Internet found the charges and trial to be unfair. He was freed in January 2000, but not allowed to touch a computer or log onto the Internet until January 20, 2003. See the story at CNN or read some background info at freekevin.com. "
Oh yeah, I remember the "Free Kevin" campaign, especially since every issue of 2600 for the longest time had something about it. I remember their big campaign to get Miramax to drop the movie they were going to make about the whole incident, where the "heroic" FBI agent chased down the "evil" hacker, who suprise attacks him and hits him over the head with a trash can lid. Pretty funny. They had a thing on The Learning Channel about him, Woz, and Capt Crunch a few weeks ago, interesting show. You have to respect someone who managed to stay on the run for over a year, create a fake identity, and get a high paying job at a law firm with that identity. Too bad he got caught in the end, after all it was nothing but a set up for the goverment to make an example out of someone...
i don't think he has been rusting. i read an article a few months ago about his testimony in a civil case against some phone switch manufacturer or other - he retrieved an old notebook of his that specified how to get into the switches and the methods still worked. default passwords i believe (nitwits)
I am looking forward to seeing what his first experience with, say, Windows XP, or the new version of Mandrake is ...
Not anyone else, perhaps NO one else, was a hard core computer user, took a say .. 10 year break .. and is now gonna be back in the system. Should be interesting to hear what he says ..
Story here. in it, Darci says:
"In totality, defending himself in the FCC case, cost Mitnick approximately $19,000, making his license the most expensive one in America. He is currently selling items on eBay to recover the costs incurred in this action. He is also still accepting donations to his FCC defense fund."
I'm not sure I'd like to be the first hacker in a media frenzy.
I'd choose a longer trial so by the time I got it, it wasnt a circus.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I always thought that the idea of freeing Kevin was retarded. I'm not even interested in what he was charged with originally. The guy skipped bail and ran from the law for two years. Why? I'm sorry, but I don't buy anyone's excuses about how there was no way he could get a fair trial under our corrupt, draconian legal system.
The media, for all intents and purposes, keeps the legal system fair. If you are being unjustly accused, there are many American organizations who will work to get the word out about your case, and in these cases justice pretty much always prevails. Look at the Dimitry case; ridiculous charges are leveled at him, Slashdot posts a story about it every two weeks, and in the end he gets off. Now look at Mumia Abu-Jamal; tens of thousands of ill-informed teenagers go around spouting off nonsense about how he's innocent, a search on Google reveals numerous web sites dedicated to his cause, yet almost 20 years after his first conviction, he still sits on death row, and my impression is that that is where he belongs. I've read all the pro-Mumia web sites and I've read a lot of anti-Mumia literature as well. I just don't see any evidence myself that he's innocent.
But back to Kevin. My biggest concern right now is that he learn from his mistakes and his time in prison so that he can find a way to use his obviously great talents for positive things. Look at Kevin Poulsen, one of the more famous hackers of the early 80's. He got caught, plead guilty, served a short prison sentence, and now does great computer security research for Securityfocus.com, among others. I have respect for him. I don't have much for Mitnick.
-- Have you ever noticed that at trade shows, Microsoft is always the company that is handing out stress balls?
Kevin was in the DC area for his book signing tour "The Art of Deception" in November this year. He showed up at the DC2600 meeting and hung around for a while.
;-).
Very personable, helpful, nice guy. No, he did not talik me out of any cc#s or pws, hehe... well... I don't think he did...
I spotted him walking through the food court and said "Hey, there's Kevin", he circled around a few times, guess he did not hear me calling his name, and he sat down and stayed for the meeting. As would happen, it was the smallest meeting in years, only 3 of us were there before Kevin got there and I don't think the count got above 15 all night. Go figure.
Several of us got him to sign blank CD-Rs (he wrote "this is not my data" under his signature. He also gave away copies of his book (free as in bird
I got signed disks for my son and me, then many of us went to his book signing at Microcenter the next day. He drew a pretty large crowd there too. Bought 2 copies of his book, one for me one for my son and added the signed stuff to my son's Christmas stuff.
A few years back I helped out with the "June 4th, Free Kevin" demonstration in front of the US Supreme Court, was glad to finally meet him in person.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I was busted hacking MCI and ATT in 84 for long distance codes(for phreaking purposes), which I then used to call bbs'round the world. I also was accused digging around in patient info in two local hospitals.
//s,Trs80s, and one Commode 64.
I was all of 14. I could pass myself off as a bell employee, had a valid ID. I was able to get a list of celeb phone numbers and harass them in a 14 year old manner.
These are all true.
1. Yoko Ono- Asked her to send me nekkid pics so I could start a bulemics club using her photo instead of stinking fingers down our throats.
2.Don King - Called him and home and asked who did his hair cause I wanted a similar doo.
3. Joan Rivers, just to tell her she was a hag.
Busted into teleconferencing systems, wreaked havoc with corporate PBX's.
I did all of this stuff with a group of friends, we social engineered, brute force attacks, all done from a hodge podge of Apple
We had a great knowledge base of other hackers plus bell lineman headsets, phone company gear.
In short we had a lotta fun and did a lotta damage to companies. 250k in phone charges to MCI alone, and the only reason we got caught was because an early 80's version of a script kiddie turned us in.
Fortunately most companies were amused, we showed them our exploits, they made us promise not to tell, and cut deals the FCC and with our parents not too let us touch comps for 5 years. No court, no fines, nothing. A little tiny slap on the wrist.
And I was very angry then. Now I fondly look back on that time with a grin(as do my parents NOW) and thank god my parents did not have to shell out 250k for the hacked codes, or for the 500 floppies of pirated software, or my ten meg drive fulla of bomb plans, software, and general mayhem.
Point is that we can do a lot of damage with our curiosity. Mitnick had others peoples code, compromised systems, and got busted. You do something illegal, and especially in an industry with closely guarded secrets you are going to get burned, and deserve punishment. It could be corporate espionage or selling out to a foreign power.
AS for the security not being good. If I walk into the 7/11 and Apu is in the bathroom and I know I can walk over and steal a bag of funions and a Big Gulp without paying, does it make it right? If I know I can bust into a system and take whats not my mine? Does the crime justify my curiosity?
If I get caught speeding can I tell the cop that I was just seeing how fast she goes, just this one time?
He knew he was wrong, and looking at his crimes, he messed with some big players, and felt the heat. Albeit some of it might have been unecessary, but a message was sent.
As for Kevin, he just built on a culmination of tools and tips that others had been sitting on for years and using. I do not see any shining brilliance, just a very intelligent guy who used availible tools. Like Linux and UNIX tools. Making use of availible resources.
Social engineering is a tool employed by charming people and sociopaths. I, unfortunately, know it is one of my great skills, but rarely trot it out anymore.
We all wanted to be David Lightman and see Protovisions latest games. And Lightman got bit in the ass wy a WOPR(always wanted to say that)
And in the old days the spirit of hacking was fun. We did get into systems, the phone company, build blue boxes(and the other ones) stole payphones and hooked them up at home, hacked the blue special box at kmart to turn it on by remote(best hack ever). And in the day we policed ourselves.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Actually he was granted the use of a laptop in order to write his book, he just can't use the internet for a few more weeks.
I'm trying hard to figure out why I'm supposed to be happy that Kevin Mitnick is finally going to be able to touch a computer again, or even why I'm supposed to care. Why is this guy such a hacker icon? As far as I'm concerned, he's an idiot more than he is some Jesus-like hacker dude.
Everyone does something stupid at least once in their life. I've broken into systems in the past, but it was just to see if I could do it. I wasn't out to prove anything to anyone else, and it only took me a short while to figure out that busting into other computers is, a) stupid, b) boring, c) seriously illegal. I had the sense, somehow, even after the first time I did it, not to do something really dumb. Dumb, like create havoc and taunt the feds, and keep on with it even as they mercilessly hunt you down.
Can someone explain to me why Kevin Mitnick is someone to revere, and why we should care that he's not still rotting in prison, much less able to use computers again?
Sun didn't claim he did millions in damages. The feds did. The feds asked Sun, Novell, etc.. how much the software Kevin copied cost to develop, and then used that as a figure to charge him with theft.
Kevins lawyer accurately pointed out that, as these companies never reported these supposed "thefts" to their shareholders in their annual reports, as required by law, either there was no theft, or all of these companies were in serious breach of securities laws.